Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

I will break that question into two parts. The first part is about the substance of the issue of direct provision. A long overdue public debate on the question of direct provision is now happening. In that regard, we are awaiting a report from this committee, to which we are looking forward. In addition, the Government has appointed an interdepartmental group to look at short to medium-term issues that arise in direct provision, which is led by one of our deputy secretaries, Ms Oonagh Buckley. That group is working within the terms of existing policy, but I hope it will think radically within that limit. The Government has also set up a second group to take a more complete look at direct provision and our whole international protection system. It is made up of a very distinguished group of people and is chaired by Ms Catherine Day. I hope it takes a thorough look at how we handle international protection, direct provision and its alternatives and considers the best course of action.

The Senator asked about the lessons we are learning. We have clearly learned lessons about communication. An example of that learning is how communication was handled in Borrisokane, where we wrote to everybody in the locality about the proposed centre. I have the letter here in front of me and it is quite impressive. We set up a special website to provide information, and in that way, we hope, eased people's fears. The consistent experience is that there is initially a good deal of fear, misunderstanding, etc., when a new centre is set up. Once a centre is established and people have gotten used to it, however, they step up and are very hospitable and the relationship can be extremely good. I do not know whether members heard the owner of the Grand Hotel in Wicklow on radio on Saturday morning. He explained this far better than I could, to be honest. I thought that was a very interesting example.